Meet Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year Contenders
These 38 Dallas innovators are building more than just their companies.
TransFirst Holdings Inc.
John Shlonsky
President and CEO
When John Shlonsky joined TransFirst Holdings Inc. in 2006, the 10-year-old, Dallas-based credit-card transaction processor needed a transformation. Its growth from acquisitions had created a silo effect without integration of divisions, or a strategic growth plan.
To get buy-in for the reformation, Shlonsky tapped employees as the change agents. “People love their own ideas,” he says. The management team, with guidance on Shlonsky’s vision, created specific strategic initiatives. Employees were surveyed for additional insights.
When the strategic initiatives were ready, Shlonsky says his team “overcommunicated” them. “You can’t just write them down. You need to live them. Breathe them. Operate in them every day. When you think you are done communicating them, communicate them 100 more times.”
That reinforcement, along with celebrations and rewards when initiatives are met, has created a powerful culture, Shlonsky says. Now even rank-and-file employees feel comfortable approaching him with ideas.
“I don’t know what else you can ask for as a leader,” he says. “They are great ideas, and most great ideas will come from your employees.” —K.C.
Varel International
Jim Nixon
President and CEO
Jim Nixon moved his family from Scotland to Dallas only to see his corporate career with Dresser Industries unhinged by a takeover. Determined to take his future into his own hands, he put together a group to purchase Varel Manufacturing Co., a manufacturer of drill bits for mining and industrial uses. The Carrollton-based company was still run by its 84-year-old founder, whose philosophy was to “stack ’em deep and sell ’em cheap.”
When Nixon took over in 1998, Varel’s gross revenues were $30 million a year in a market dominated by just four suppliers, all of them divisions of huge multinational corporations.
“We spent the first three or four years focusing on nothing but improving quality, reliability, and technology,” Nixon says. “Expansion would follow, but first things first.”
Once the company had products that could compete with “the big boys,” Nixon went global and grew the company to its current $350 million in annual sales.
“It is very David and Goliath,” Nixon says. “It’s almost like guerilla warfare. We have to pick the battles we can win. The hardest task was globalization itself. There are huge pitfalls. But now that we’ve done it, we believe that we have the foundation of a $1 billion company within the next couple of years.” —J.D.J.
Windstream Corp.
Jeff Gardner
President and CEO
When the board of directors at Alltel Wireless saw the potential in their wireline product, they quickly appointed visionary Jeff Gardner as president and CEO of the new spin-off company, Windstream Corp., in early 2006.
Roughly four years later, Little Rock, Ark.-based Windstream has become the fifth-largest local telephone company in the U.S., with more than 8,800 employees spread out across 23 states. It was Gardner’s vision from the start to transform the phone company into a business that focuses on bringing new technologies, like broadband, to enterprise customers.
“From the beginning, I recruited aggressive people without a legacy background in the telephone industry,” Gardner says. “We knew that to be competitive over the long run, we needed to focus less on the residential side of our business and focus instead on the enterprise customer.”
It was that change of focus that led to the innovative purchase of NuVox in 2009. “While other telephone companies were out buying companies that look just like them, we stepped out and bought an entirely differently kind of business focused on getting the enterprise customer,” Gardner says. —K.A.
WorldVentures
Mike Azcue (right)
CEO
WorldVentures
Wayne Nugent (below)
Chief visionary officer
Mike Azcue had already made a fortune in direct sales when he decided to start his own company in 1999. “That was a real, real struggle,” he says with emphasis. “I told myself that I would never do that again.”
Luckily for him, he failed to take his own advice. Azcue and his partner, Wayne Nugent, were top salespeople for a travel company when Nugent shared his idea for a travel company that would harness the power of the Internet with a direct sales approach. Soon enough, WorldVentures debuted on the web, selling discount travel packages to members who were sold on the deal by an independent direct sales rep.
In 2006, its first year of operation, WorldVentures grossed $15 million in revenue. By 2009, that number had swelled to $90 million.
With more than 60,000 people now selling WorldVentures memberships, Azcue believes that his company is positioned to become the “Mary Kay of travel.”
“Most people in direct sales love the fact that the more successful you can make other people, the more successful you become,” Azcue says. “I don’t ever see myself leaving WorldVentures. I love what we’re building, and I’m having a blast.”
“Mike and I are like the dynamic duo,” adds Nugent. “I like to think and dream it up, and he likes to get it done. If I was bogged down in everyday detail, we wouldn’t be where we are today.”
As the Plano-based company’s chief visionary officer, Nugent describes his daily routine as walking into employees’ offices, finding out their priorities, and scribbling directions on their omnipresent whiteboards about “what’s coming next.” He sees himself as the one who helps the parts come together so that WorldVentures can become “the largest travel company in the world, but not at the expense of being the best.”
It’s not hard to grasp Nugent’s vision for the company when he lists his role models: Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson. He wants nothing short of making a direct sales company a “cool” and lasting brand.
“Who controls the end user in the travel industry?” he asks rhetorically. “It’s friends and family. We have built our model around that. There’s nothing else out there to compare it to.” —J.D.J.
